New Challenges
At Misci, a museum celebrating innovation, there are innovators dealing with impact of pandemic. /
One of the earliest recorded soundtracks will make you laugh. There’s some cornet music and a guy laughing, along with the recitation of “Old Mother Hubbard” and “Mary had a Little Lamb.” These welcome and joyful noises, digitized from Thomas Edison’s tinfoil that they’re recorded on, are included in Misci’s exhibit on sound. The exhibit came together as the more interactive aspects of the museum had to be made off-limits.
To hear the recording, you need to scan the code on the exhibit at the Museum of Innovation and Science with a smartphone. If it wasn’t for that little piece of tinfoil holding these recorded sounds from 1878, you wouldn’t be able to listen to them on your smartphone. “Everything in here. Is in there,” said museum President Gina Gould, referring to my phone.
The inventions in the sound exhibit led to the eventual development of the modern smartphone. And those items, like the eight-track player, the film recorder, a gramophone from the 1890s, a 1920s “sound-on” film recorder and a Victrola phonograph, are all due to the technology that created the little tinfoil. That’s when the whoa factor comes in; it’s kind of a trippy circle of technology.
The displays, spread out in such a way that
there’s plenty of room to social distance, are part of how Misci’s dealing with the challenges the coronavirus pandemic’s presented to museums. You can’t visit the Challenger and International Space Station learning centers and many of the interactive exhibits, but you can take that trip through the history of sound. Then you can see some of the early toys that came about because people had more time for leisure activities, thanks to the development of the electric industry and the second industrial revolution. In an exhibit titled simply “Play!” there’s a 19th-century ironclad toy ship, antique dolls, autographed baseballs from Capital Region minor league baseball team and old ice skates. There’s also more recent examples, like a collection of “Star Wars” figurines.
Like everything, museums had to pivot and at a museum celebrating innovation, there are innovators.
“Museum people are very creative. That’s why they come to museums to work,” Gould said.
During COVID, the museum received some good news after having to shut down. Misci was awarded a $540,000 grant from an Anonymous Fund of The Community Foundation for the Greater Capital Region to support the museum’s mission and operations.
“It was a mindbender, frankly,” Gould said. That financial infusion helped deal with the fallout from low attendance and the inability to host events.
“People are generally frightened to go inside,” Gould said. “We think it’s very safe,” she said. “I feel safe and I have to go home to an 82-year-old mom and a 70-year-old husband.” For a fee, Misci is also offering a Virtual Learning Space, where students grades 1-5, can attend virtual classes supervised by museum staff. And there’s an educational outreach program being offered as well.
And the museum staff is planning an interactive miniature golf project slated to open on Oct. 24, as well as a train exhibit.
Museum people are very creative. That’s why they come to museums to work.”
— Gina Gould
Tentatively called “Engineering the Perfect Shot,” each hole will have a scientific theme, according to Chris Hunter, vice president of collections and exhibitions.
“Even though it’s indoors, it’s not going to be a f lat course. We’re building hills and ridges,” he said. “It’s something like the butterflies we do every spring,” he said, referring to Misci’s popular indoor butterfly exhibit. “It’s something that at that time of the year, you won’t be able to do anyplace else. Where else are you going to be able to play mini-golf in the winter?”
For now, much of the hands-on play is limited to an experimental area where Nicole Hoffman of Rotterdam and her 3-year-old daughter Elizabeth were trying out the individual boxes that contained an empty water bottle and pieces of wood to use. Each box is then sanitized after use, Gould said.
It was one of their first major outings since the coronavirus quarantine began. Hoffman said she was nervous at first, but they enjoyed themselves. “We have mommy and Elizabeth days on Fridays. Today we thought we’d try the museum. And I’m glad we did. We had a fun morning.”